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Lawful #1-4
Lawful, Volume 1
Urban decay meets magical realism in this thought provoking story perfect for fans of Avatar The Last Airbender!
In a world where even the smallest transgressions breed monstrous consequences, 19 year old Sung, after a tragic incident, is cursed with three scales on his chest, and believes that if he just obeys the law with unflinching dedication, then his transformation won’t continue further. But all is not as it seems when Sung faces the unexpected consequences of a seemingly heroic act, and learns that the city elite, their laws, and their Champion does not work for the common folk like Sung thought. Renowned and award-winning writer Greg Pak (Mech Cadets, Darth Vader) and acclaimed artist Diego Galindo (Stranger Things: The Voyage) lead readers on a journey of self-discovery and social commentary, urging the question–who decides what is monstrous?
Collects Lawful #1-4.
In a world where even the smallest transgressions breed monstrous consequences, 19 year old Sung, after a tragic incident, is cursed with three scales on his chest, and believes that if he just obeys the law with unflinching dedication, then his transformation won’t continue further. But all is not as it seems when Sung faces the unexpected consequences of a seemingly heroic act, and learns that the city elite, their laws, and their Champion does not work for the common folk like Sung thought. Renowned and award-winning writer Greg Pak (Mech Cadets, Darth Vader) and acclaimed artist Diego Galindo (Stranger Things: The Voyage) lead readers on a journey of self-discovery and social commentary, urging the question–who decides what is monstrous?
Collects Lawful #1-4.
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 12, 2025
30 people want to read
About the author
Greg Pak
1,649 books581 followersGreg Pak is an award-winning Korean American comic book writer and filmmaker currently writing "Lawful" for BOOM and "Sam Wilson: Captain America" (with Evan Narcisse) for Marvel. Pak wrote the "Princess Who Saved Herself" children's book and the “Code Monkey Save World” graphic novel based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton and co-wrote (with Fred Van Lente) the acclaimed “Make Comics Like the Pros” how-to book. Pak's other work includes "Planet Hulk," "Darth Vader," "Mech Cadet Yu," "Ronin Island," "Action Comics," and "Magneto Testament."
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 23, 2025
(B+) 78% | Good
Notes: On indelible stains, shame and its strain, righteousness v. glory, a speedy flow but on-the-nose (a never-subtle story).
*Progress updates: Preamble ◦ Issues #1-2 ◦ Issues #3-4
Notes: On indelible stains, shame and its strain, righteousness v. glory, a speedy flow but on-the-nose (a never-subtle story).
*Progress updates: Preamble ◦ Issues #1-2 ◦ Issues #3-4
May 10, 2025
Sung hopes to work for the Champion as his late father did, keeping the city safe in a world where any crime, no matter how small, leaves a physical animalistic mutation - but when he protects his friend, the consequences reveal a startling new side to the law that pushes him to take drastic actions. Pak, Galindo and Kniivila bring fantasy readers an intriguing dystopia, well illustrated and offering some decently engaging threads despite its more bland pacing. What will Sung do when those he looked up to show signs of corruption?
March 17, 2025
Middle of the road. Really like the concept, art is beautiful. I’m excited to see where the story goes.
April 12, 2025
Looking forward to future issues since there was some decent world building in this collection.
August 7, 2025
When difference is criminal and free action is coded as sin, goodness is the serrated knife held to the neck of the innocent. Is a person truly good when their thoughts and behaviors are coerced by the auspices of their superiors? Sung Lim, an aspiring public servant, will learn the hard way.
LAWFUL pokes and prods the possibilities that abound in a militant state in which individual behaviors deemed unlawful possess fantastical consequences. Resisting the policing authority. Cheating on a test. Theft. Unlawful behavior often produces instantaneous, karmic faults in the offender: horns, scales, hooves, fangs. The world of LAWFUL is curious and strange, which is fun, but this world is also relatively closed and inexplicable, which isn't so fun.
Sung Lim recently passed his test for a local clerkship. He's not exactly on the same path of his widely respected, heroic father, who died in the line of duty as an enforcer of some type. Even so, Sung is a kid with a bright future. His sickly mother, as well as his best friend, Eris, all attest that Sung's insistence on following the rules make him an annoyingly "good boy." But in an authoritative state, goodness is scarcely enough.
LAWFUL has beautiful character designs and excellent coloring. By necessity, the different creature designs constitute a big part of the book's aesthetic and the creative team did a great job ensuring the atypical feels natural (e.g., Eris' horns, a commoner's scales, a man's feathers). The world of this comic book features a multitude of mixed-species designs, and they're all quite magnificent. The comic's enduring question/theme of attempting to discern what constitutes a "human" is repeatedly pressured and confounded by the fact that many human/beast hybrids look pretty dang cool. (Somewhat problematically, readers receive zero explanation as to why these karmic events even occur.)
Sung's life on the outer rung of society is threadbare. He learns a secret he's not supposed to learn; he makes an attempt at earnestness that puts his mother in danger; and he struggles to release his sense of justice when faced with the consequences of his pride. To this end, the comic book treads a predictable narrative arc, and Sung himself doesn't make for a compelling protagonist. The system is unjust and good people are punished for simply being who they are? Got it. Sung is an educated young man thrust into an impossible situation? Got it.
The book is not entirely without drama (e.g., the city's militant "champion" isn't exactly as clean and proper as he appears; local religious authorities are highly corrupt), but halfway through the third issue, readers can easily guess each step the story will subsequently take. An obvious narrative structure and a conventional point-of-view character ultimately slow and dull the book's otherwise curious premise.
LAWFUL pokes and prods the possibilities that abound in a militant state in which individual behaviors deemed unlawful possess fantastical consequences. Resisting the policing authority. Cheating on a test. Theft. Unlawful behavior often produces instantaneous, karmic faults in the offender: horns, scales, hooves, fangs. The world of LAWFUL is curious and strange, which is fun, but this world is also relatively closed and inexplicable, which isn't so fun.
Sung Lim recently passed his test for a local clerkship. He's not exactly on the same path of his widely respected, heroic father, who died in the line of duty as an enforcer of some type. Even so, Sung is a kid with a bright future. His sickly mother, as well as his best friend, Eris, all attest that Sung's insistence on following the rules make him an annoyingly "good boy." But in an authoritative state, goodness is scarcely enough.
LAWFUL has beautiful character designs and excellent coloring. By necessity, the different creature designs constitute a big part of the book's aesthetic and the creative team did a great job ensuring the atypical feels natural (e.g., Eris' horns, a commoner's scales, a man's feathers). The world of this comic book features a multitude of mixed-species designs, and they're all quite magnificent. The comic's enduring question/theme of attempting to discern what constitutes a "human" is repeatedly pressured and confounded by the fact that many human/beast hybrids look pretty dang cool. (Somewhat problematically, readers receive zero explanation as to why these karmic events even occur.)
Sung's life on the outer rung of society is threadbare. He learns a secret he's not supposed to learn; he makes an attempt at earnestness that puts his mother in danger; and he struggles to release his sense of justice when faced with the consequences of his pride. To this end, the comic book treads a predictable narrative arc, and Sung himself doesn't make for a compelling protagonist. The system is unjust and good people are punished for simply being who they are? Got it. Sung is an educated young man thrust into an impossible situation? Got it.
The book is not entirely without drama (e.g., the city's militant "champion" isn't exactly as clean and proper as he appears; local religious authorities are highly corrupt), but halfway through the third issue, readers can easily guess each step the story will subsequently take. An obvious narrative structure and a conventional point-of-view character ultimately slow and dull the book's otherwise curious premise.
August 31, 2025
3.5 stars
I liked this a bit more than I expected to, if I'm being honest. I was drawn in at first by Diego Galindo's art and Irma Kniivila's muted colouring.
The setting of New Sanctum is fully coded as fantasy, but has a well-trod S-F foundation where a large portion of a city has found itself transported buildings, people and all, to another world ((parallel or planet it's not explained) see The Woods for a smaller scale imagining of that idea). Its somewhere though that some kind of magic exists in the form of a Witch's Ward that keeps people sane, because if you don't stay 'good' then one 'bad' act followed by another leads to wholesale bodily transformation into creatures, chimera and full-scale monsters.
In this story we follow Sung and Eris. Sung is the son of a dead Champion, with high ideals to uphold and Eris who is the daughter of one of the richest families in New Sanctum, protected even as she acts out with signs of transformation already wholly visible. Sung cannot afford to make a mistake because he's aiming to work in the Office of the Champion.
Soon after starting there he has a form land on his desk authorising the expulsion of Eris, which he stamps as under review, reprieving her for the time being, which leads to a further transformation of scales on his chest from an incident with Eris when they were children.
When he returns to the office having changed his mind he witnesses the Champion drinking an elixir returning him to full human form - the elites of this society have been fascistically lying to their people about the irreversible effects of the inhuman transformations and Sung realises that he can help Eris, but in doing do he worsens his bodily changes, leading to him being captured by the Champion's guards. He and his mother are then exiled...to The Outer Circle, with the knowledge that the society that they've just been exiled from us corrupt to the core.
Sharing some of societal issues as Greg Pak's Ronin Island this is a good story and I'm very much looking forward to the concluding volume.
I liked this a bit more than I expected to, if I'm being honest. I was drawn in at first by Diego Galindo's art and Irma Kniivila's muted colouring.
The setting of New Sanctum is fully coded as fantasy, but has a well-trod S-F foundation where a large portion of a city has found itself transported buildings, people and all, to another world ((parallel or planet it's not explained) see The Woods for a smaller scale imagining of that idea). Its somewhere though that some kind of magic exists in the form of a Witch's Ward that keeps people sane, because if you don't stay 'good' then one 'bad' act followed by another leads to wholesale bodily transformation into creatures, chimera and full-scale monsters.
In this story we follow Sung and Eris. Sung is the son of a dead Champion, with high ideals to uphold and Eris who is the daughter of one of the richest families in New Sanctum, protected even as she acts out with signs of transformation already wholly visible. Sung cannot afford to make a mistake because he's aiming to work in the Office of the Champion.
Soon after starting there he has a form land on his desk authorising the expulsion of Eris, which he stamps as under review, reprieving her for the time being, which leads to a further transformation of scales on his chest from an incident with Eris when they were children.
When he returns to the office having changed his mind he witnesses the Champion drinking an elixir returning him to full human form - the elites of this society have been fascistically lying to their people about the irreversible effects of the inhuman transformations and Sung realises that he can help Eris, but in doing do he worsens his bodily changes, leading to him being captured by the Champion's guards. He and his mother are then exiled...to The Outer Circle, with the knowledge that the society that they've just been exiled from us corrupt to the core.
Sharing some of societal issues as Greg Pak's Ronin Island this is a good story and I'm very much looking forward to the concluding volume.
August 15, 2025
Interesting premise. Set on a world where any deviation from the legal and the moral has immediate physical consequences, this feels like it's going to eventually turn into a rebelling against dystopia situation. Especially once the dirty secret of the ruling class is discovered by the main character. Unfortunately, I simply couldn't get attached to any of the major characters. Our main character, a goody two shoes who wants to follow in his father's footsteps, starts out well enough. The anxiety he feels about always having the do the right thing and the potential consequences if he slips even slightly feel believable and even relatable. But that's the entirety of his personality, and when he has a change of heart towards the end of the volume he feels even more flat. His rebellious friend is obnoxiously self centered, and her naive contrarianism costs too much to be this easily forgiven. The champion is almost cartoonishly corrupt, which doesn't make him a very compelling villain. Interesting, but it needed more flavor and dimension in the characters.
October 6, 2025
oh, this is good! Entertaining while it blends world building and story telling seamlessly. Lawful establishes its setting, characters, and plot without feeling cramped leaving moments room to breath. Just a great balancing act all around, I'm eager to read the next volume. Lawful is my first brush with Diego Galindo's art but I am already a fan, a talent to watch.
July 8, 2025
This is a really neat idea - break a rule and it shows up on your body as a horn, or scales, or claws. The art is cool, the characters already relatable, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one.
December 23, 2025
Visible sin is an interesting premise. Of course, the rich and powerful have a work around for the condition. One that has been 'perfect' for most of his life has to deal with this fact and it takes its toll.
May 24, 2025
Fun premise!
October 22, 2025
I could not put this down!
December 27, 2025
Compelling, fun, relevant story, good and skillful interior art, gorgeous covers.
April 4, 2025
See volume 2 review
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews